


Debt, Guilt, and Frustration

by rivendellrose



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Sex, Drunken Shenanigans, M/M, Massage, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Lust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-07
Updated: 2016-10-07
Packaged: 2018-08-20 00:09:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8229476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rivendellrose/pseuds/rivendellrose
Summary: Archer and Shran get drunk, and Shran decides to take advantage of some gaps between human knowledge and Andorian sexuality.





	

**Author's Note:**

> It pains me to use the rape/non-con tag, but in the interests of honesty I had to. If you're looking for something graphic and violent, this is very much not at all the fic for you.
> 
> From a human perspective, everything that happens here is so innocent it could be shown on the damned Disney Channel. Shran's not human, though, and his intentions here are very much not pure and innocent, the little devil.
> 
> Someday maybe I'll get these two to actually deal with what's hovering in the air between them, but today is very much not that day.

The mere unvoiced thought of his situation was embarrassing, but when the words themselves actually entered his mind, Shran felt a terror the likes of which he'd only experienced a few times in his life. It was a feeling like falling off a cliff, like seeing his death right in front of him... and it had been brought on by such a damnably innocent and productive interaction, too.

He was in love with Archer. Or, no, not love. It couldn't be love, that would be ridiculous. Better to say he lusted after the human... but even that was horrifying. The thought should have turned his stomach - would have, if it had been presented to him in more general terms, he felt sure, expressed as nothing more specific than 'a human.' It would have felt entirely wrong in those terms, as wrong as it undoubtedly still was. So where along the path of their strange and rocky friendship had he picked up this plaguing sense that it was what he wanted?

And the worst part was that it was as much his mind that wanted as his body, if not more. If that wasn't love, a contrary part of him whispered...

It was all entirely too ridiculous and humiliating to be borne.

So he ignored it. Stifled the feelings it raised, stuffed them into the back of his mind, beat them down whenever they tried to emerge, and constructed a wall of willful ignorance behind which he could endure the siege of these inner demons whenever they made strafing runs into the territory of his sane mind. Not love. Not even lust. Curiosity. Respect for an opposite number and a useful ally, a useful tool whose actions could be predicted, whose alien forces could be pointed in directions that served the needs of the empire. Yes, that was entirely acceptable, wasn't it? He didn't desire to see Archer and help him, he was cultivating a relationship that came with significant strategic value. Even his superiors within the Imperial Guard recognized that. They praised him for his cunning in recognizing that the human could be subverted to their will, and Shran accepted the praise, squashed the impulse to deny it with what would appear as false modesty. Yes, Archer would be useful to them, certainly. He would continue to build the relationship, to groom the human to be of more benefit to the empire in the future.

So that was what he was doing. They were seated in Archer's quarters--not in the observation lounge, and Shran didn't know whether to be worried or pleased by that development--drinking a bitter, strangely smoke-flavored human liquor that Archer had called... something. Shran couldn't remember.

"What did you say this was called?"

Archer offered that strange half-smile he was so fond of--the one that definitely did not make something in Shran's abdomen twist. "Whiskey."

"Whis-key," Shran repeated, careful of the alien syllables. "And it's a common drink on your world?"

"Common enough," Archer agreed. "We have a lot of different liquors and alcoholic beverages that are traditional for different occasions or cultural groups. But whiskey is one of the ones known best for two men of the world sitting together and talking about the state of things."

"Men of the universe." Shran swirled the amber liquid in his glass and took another sip. It burned like his people's liquor, but the taste... the taste was something entirely different. Musky. He was momentarily overcome by the memory of an inebriated liaison he'd had with a rival commander the last time he was back on Andoria, and the way he'd tasted Andorian ale on her lips, the way the sharpness of it had combined with the salt on her skin when he licked her stomach, antennae straining upward to hear her soft gasp. If Shran went to Archer now, crossed the short distance between the sofa where he sat and the one just across the way where he lounged, he wouldn't have to taste the strangeness of Archer's mouth. He would only taste the whiskey.

He kept to his seat, and tried to stuff that thought back into the dark corner of his mind where it belonged. The whiskey seemed to have made it slippery, and it kept escaping to torment him again and again.

"You seem distracted, Shran. Is everything all right?"

"It's fine." Shran tossed back the rest of his glass and held it out to be refilled.

"You're sure?" Archer eyed him, concern obvious in his expression. "This stuff's strong, and your system isn't used to it--"

"It's no stronger than what I'm used to," Shran interrupted. The damned human was always doing that, always trying to protect everyone, save everyone. Even people he had no right to save, no right to have any interest in. It wasn't right. "You should look after your own safety, pink-skin, and let others concern themselves with their own," Shran informed him, and then realized vaguely that the transition might not make any sense to Archer.

"It's not the first time I've knocked back a few whiskeys with a friend," Archer reminded him. Ah. Yes, good--he'd taken Shran's non sequitur for concern about his level of inebriation. That was fine, then. "Just be careful, you don't want to end up in sickbay with some kind of advanced allergic reaction."

Of course, Archer had to have turned the situation back around. "Certainly not in your sickbay," Shran grumbled, and took another drink once the glass was back in his hands.

"I don't know that I like the implication of that." Archer smiled, though, and leaned back comfortably on his sofa, limbs loose and open. Entirely too comfortable, entirely too sure of his safety with Shran. He would be easy to kill, or at least incapacitate, here, Shran told himself. Not that it mattered, but it was the kind of thought he couldn't quite restrain while looking at an alien. And that kind of thought, at least, was only natural, and to be commended in his position. Yes, if Archer weren't so useful, he would be easy to kill, now. Shran could probably even escape the ship, get back to the Kumari, and be out of the system before Archer's crew realized what had happened. They trusted him that much, now. It would be simple. And it would solve some of the problems that had been plaguing him, too. For a brief moment, Shran almost convinced himself he might consider it. The harder part was to assure himself that he dismissed the idea purely for the sake of how useful Archer could be.

"You owe me," he said before he'd thought about the words coming out of his mouth.

Archer looked confused, and more than a little amused. "Do I?"

Annoyed, Shran knocked back more of the whiskey. "You do. You'd be dead a hundred times over if it wasn't for me, Archer. You know that."

The smile didn't leave Archer's face. "Maybe so. You'd be pretty dead if it wasn't for me, too, though. And at war."

"War." Shran waved dismissively. "What else is the Imperial Guard for? Of course we would be at war. The peace with Vulcan won't last. They'll betray us again, and we'll fight them. It'll never end."

"It might."

Shran shook his head. "You don't know them like we do. Like I do. All their babble about logic and reason... they're vicious liars, totally without honor. They hate us, and they'll never stop until they've killed every last Andorian. We're some kind of... insult to them, just by existing. You humans like them because they give you things, help you, but they're not really your friends. I've helped you more than Soval ever has." A fire of jealousy kindled in his chest, Shran snorted. "Vulcans only know how to make use of people."

"I suppose that might be true." Archer drank slowly, watching Shran with thoughtful eyes.

A sudden wave of guilt washed over Shran. Use, yes--wasn't that how he had been excusing his relationship with Archer? But of course it was a lie, it wasn't... wasn't... that wasn't all... And what if that was what Archer was thinking?

"Where were your good friends the Vulcans when your planet was nearly destroyed, hmm?" Shran gestured toward the window with his glass, then toward Archer. "We Andorians know what friendship means. We pay our debts."

"I don't doubt it, Shran." Again with that blithe, unconcerned smile of Archer's. "God knows you've paid off debts to me that I didn't know existed."

What in the name of everything holy was that supposed to mean? Shran eyed Archer suspiciously.

"By now, though, I'd say we're just about even. Or at least that there are so many debts back and forth between us that it's time to stop counting," Archer said. "Among humans, we don't count favors between friends."

"Hmph." Shran considered this, trying to read between the lines to figure out what Archer was trying to say to him. "That sounds to me like an excuse to get out of responsibility."

"Not at all." Archer leaned forward, elbows on his knees, warming to his subject. "What I mean is that with true friendship there's a point at which you don't have to count anymore--where you'd do things for the person even if you know they can't pay you back, and they do the same."

Shran frowned into his glass. "That's another thing I've noticed about you, Archer. You like to pretend that the universe is simpler than it is."

“I like to keep things simple. There’s a difference.”

A snort told Archer what Shran thought of that distinction. “In what sense?”

“It’s not that I think the universe is simple.” That placid, mild smile of Archer’s was starting to make Shran ache to punch him. Maybe that was progress, considering what he’d begun to suspect he was aching to do to him a moment before. “It’s that I like to keep my attitude toward the universe simple because the universe itself is so complex. I can’t control the universe, but I can sure as hell control the way I interact with it. There’s wrong and right, and I like to make sure I know what’s on what side.”

“You people won’t last a century out here, with that kind of attitude,” Shran informed him.

“Is that why you keep rescuing us?”

If Archer were Andorian, Shran would have had the uncomfortable feeling in that moment that he knew exactly why Shran kept rescuing him--that he knew, perhaps, even better than Shran himself. Looking at his strange pink face and his ridiculous floppy hair, however, and the way he squinted at just about everything... How was anyone supposed to tell what the human was thinking, Shran wondered, with all the mixed and completely lacking signals he was sending? “Someone has to stop you from getting yourself killed over every lost cause in the galaxy.”

“I’d have thought you might regard that as evolution in action, based on what I’ve read of your people’s philosophy,” Archer remarked. Shran had the sense that though he looked to be relaxed, Archer was nonetheless watching him very, very closely. “Don’t you more or less believe if someone is stupid enough to get themselves killed, it’s better for the species as a whole?”

“I dread the thought of how dangerous space might become if your species were to get even stupider and more impetuous.” Shran stood, unable to ignore the nervous energy that was coursing through him any longer. “But we’re also believers in what I think you pink-skins call ‘enlightened self-interest.’”

“You think I’m easier to deal with than any other human Starfleet might send out here,” Archer translated with a smile.

“I know as much,” Shran assured him. “Besides, you owe me, now. It’s hardly to my benefit to let you get yourself killed in some stupid manner before I can collect on that debt.”

“Ah, of course.” Archer lounged back in his chair, his hands hanging loose at his side, his head tilted slightly back as he watched Shran pace. “You sure you’re feeling all right?”

“I’m fine.” 

“Because if there’s a problem--”

“There’s no problem.” 

“I only meant...” Archer trailed off, running a hand through his hair, and Shran blinked, watching its progress through the oddly floppy brown hanks. He’d seen Archer do that a number of times, in enough circumstances to know that the gesture didn’t have the kind of private significance that it did to an Andorian, but it still looked... dirty, frankly. It was more than a bit obscene, watching a person handle their scalp in public, rooting around in the hair as if there wasn’t anything... well. For a human, perhaps there wasn’t. Most likely, Shran supposed, since he’d never seen the slightest indication of any sensing apparatus like what Andorians had upon human heads. He was no doctor or scientist, but as a soldier he knew enough about Vulcan physiology to know that there was nothing more delicate than the scalp itself on the tops of their heads, and humans looked to be built on a similar plan. Their hair guarded nothing more personal than the skin out of which it grew, and the skull beneath, and it seemed, therefore, that humans thought nothing of touching it in company.

Which meant there was no reason to assume they would think anything odd about touching another being in that way.

Which was a thought that Shran very much wished had not occurred to him, and one that, if he had drunk less alcohol, he would surely have buried quickly and disregarded for as long as his conscious mind could pretend ignorance about it. But he very much had drunk alcohol, and he’d also had a very tiring few days, and Archer was watching him with those damnably patient, curious, sympathetic eyes of his, and it was making Shran think about all the ways that the human didn’t think about things in the same way that one of his own people did, and how an unscrupulous and slightly intoxicated person might just be able to take a little advantage of that fact.

“I’m sorry,” he said shortly. “It’s been a difficult few days.”

“Of course. No apologies necessary. If there’s anything I can do...”

The triumphant thrill that went through Shran at that statement was impossible for him to deny to himself. Of course Archer would say that--of course he would. It was exactly the sort of thing that Archer would say, and while a morally decent person, according to Archer’s standards, would, undoubtedly, decline any such offer, particularly when it could very well be said to be taken up under false pretenses... well, when had Shran ever attempted to be morally decent by human standards?

“To be honest, Archer, there is something. I wouldn’t normally suggest it to an alien, but...” Twitching his fingers lightly against his thigh, Shran allowed himself to trail off for a moment as if recalculating, doubting, regarding Archer with the expression of a man rejudging their friendship. His antennae fairly _ached_ with how intently he was watching Archer, now, searching for any sign that the human might be pulling back from him. But Archer was as still and calm as ever, his temperature and heart rate unchanged, innocently awaiting whatever his ally... his friend, was about to say. 

Shran shoved aside a guilty, giddy qualm and continued. “It’s nothing serious, but I’ve felt a bit on edge here lately, being among you humans all the time. Among Andorians, there would be ways for comrades to release the tension.”

Archer’s right eyebrow quirked, something Shran had noticed happened more often since his close encounter with Vulcan mysticism. Contagious body language, he thought, and nearly laughed aloud. He was able to stifle the reaction, though, and Archer didn’t seem to notice. He did seem to find something odd about Shran’s turn of phrase, however. “Release the tension,” Archer repeated, his tone somewhat dubious.

“Stress relief,” Shran clarified, “and bonding. Team-building, you might say,” he added, deliberately stealing a term he’d heard Archer use in regards to his crew.

Archer smiled. “Usually drinking together qualifies as all of that.”

Shran inclined his head and shrugged slightly, as if to say if one then why not the other.

“What did you have in mind?”

“It was you running your hand through your hair that made me think of it.”

With a slow frown, Archer took a moment, then said, “Scalp massage?” 

His tone was so mild and yet so dubious that for a moment Shran wondered if maybe Starfleet was better informed than he’d given them credit for--if, perhaps, they’d picked up intelligence on Andorian biology and briefed Archer on it, or if T’Pol might have mentioned something her people learned through interrogation practices or their long, if either violent or generally dismissive, relations with Andorians. But it was a poor captain of the Imperial Guard who backed out of an engagement at the first hint of resistance, so Shran inclined his head again and said only, “It’s only a thought. But since you asked--”

“I’m only surprised. Your antennae--”

“Aren’t so delicate as to be injured by a little massage.”

“I only meant I would have thought it might be uncomfortable for you,” Archer pointed out. “They are sensory organs.”

Shran shrugged. “So are hands. I wouldn’t have thought humans would be so obsessed with clasping them, not having many alternative sensory apparatus.”

And that, he saw immediately, was the right tactic to take--humans touched hands all the time, and with anyone from a slight acquaintance on upward. They shook hands on first meeting a stranger, if they were allowed, and the comparison to that gesture seemed to reassure Archer that he was on solid ground as far as scalp massage went, that it was nothing dangerous or intimate or otherwise to be worried about. And as that seemed to be the sole source of his hesitation, he stood up... and then gave an amused laugh when he looked at Shran. “All right. How, uh... how do we do this?”

“Sit back down.” Pretending annoyance to cover the awkward mix of smug delight and shame that actually filled him, Shran gestured Archer back to his chair, then, once the human had followed his instruction, seated himself on the floor in front of Archer. “There.”

“You’re sure you’re all right down there?” Archer asked, settling his hands awkwardly on Shran’s shoulders. 

“Yes, yes, I’m fine. Stop being such a nursemaid about the whole thing and go ahead.”

“You’ll, uh...” Archer gave an awkward chuckle. “You’ll let me know if I’m about to hurt you, right? I’m not too sure about the antennae.” 

“Yes, of course. They’re not that delicate.” 

“You’d know better than I would...”

And just when Shran thought he might lose his mind from the tension of sitting there waiting, anticipating, and trying to seem perfectly casual about it all, Archer’s fingers combed through his hair and began to gently massage his scalp, and it was all wrong, completely alien and wrong in so many ways, but also exactly what he'd wanted. Archer didn't know where to touch, he seemed inclined to focus mostly on Shran's temples and the base of his skull rather than the mid-crown where any Andorian would naturally know to center their attention, and the pressure wasn't quite right, and his hands were so cold...

"Are you always this warm?" Archer asked.

Shran rolled his eyes, even though he knew Archer couldn't see the reaction. "Does your government not believe in supplying its ship captains with information about other species, or do you just have some kind of philosophical aversion to actually reading it?" 

"Never seemed to be much point, as far as physiological briefings go. I'm not a doctor, and we're similar enough that basic first aid doesn't vary too much from one species to the next. It's not like I need to know the exact chemical composition of your blood to know how to tie a tourniquet or apply pressure if you're bleeding."

"No wonder you were making such a fuss about hurting me," Shran muttered. "In the interest of you not stopping to treat me for a fever, yes, this is a fairly normal body temperature for an Andorian. Whereas your hands are apparently trying to freeze the nerves on my head."

"Cold hands, warm heart," Archer quipped--or at least Shran took it as some kind of quip that had meaning to him, as he sounded quite pleased with himself at the remark. "Is it helping?"

"Helping what?"

The motion of Archer's hands slowed almost to a stop, and through the haze Shran realized his mistake. "The massaging. Yes, it is, very much. Thank you. If you could... just a little higher up. By the roots of the antennae."

Archer made a sound something between a hum and a grunt and moved his hands. "Here?"

It took nearly all of Shran's not inconsiderable self-control not to groan his answer: "Yes." But there was nowhere to go from there but down, and entirely too soon Archer tired of his massage, slowing down and eventually ending it with his hands on Shran's shoulders again. 

"Better?" he asked.

_No. Not at all, worse, a thousand times worse, either come down here or just throw me out an airlock. In fact, better just do that, I don't think I could stand the humiliation of admitting--_

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Any time.” Archer squeezed his shoulders a bit, then stood up, and the universe went, more or less, back to normal. "You could stay here tonight," he said, and the universe snapped back into some kind of alternate version that Shran couldn't comprehend. 

"What?"

"You could stay here," Archer repeated. "We've got some empty quarters that aren't being used, we're not at full crew complement right now--"

"Oh." Shran mentally shook himself. Of course that was what Archer had meant. "No, it's fine."

"Come on, Shran, you're in no fit state to be piloting back to your ship right now, and we both know it." Archer smirked. "I know your tolerance is usually pretty high, but it's clear whiskey isn't quite what you're used to."

Shran shook his head. "You'd have to wake your quartermaster."

"Nah. I'm the captain, I've got override codes for all the empty rooms."

"I don't need rooms."

"Then just stay here. The sofa's perfectly comfortable, I'll grab you a blanket and an extra pillow."

So that was how it happened that, less than ten minutes after manipulating Archer into doing something the human had no contextual understanding of, Shran lay awake in the near-darkness of Archer's personal quarters, trying very, very hard not to hear the sound of the already slowing, nearly somnolent breathing in the next room, and realizing that he'd behaved in a frankly horrible manner toward a man who treated him as a friend.

It was fine, he told himself. He'd helped Archer before, even without the human knowing. He'd slipped information to Archer that he had no business giving up to an alien, and risked his own crew to save Archer and his. He'd risked his life to save Archer's. Nothing he'd done that night had hurt the human or so much as upset him--he didn't even realize anything untoward had happened. As far as Archer was concerned, nothing had. So it was fine. 

But if that was the case, then why couldn't Shran sleep? And why did he feel, in the pit of his stomach, the sick and guilty certainty that he'd betrayed a friend for his own petty gratification?

_Because you’re drunk, Shran. Isn’t that reason enough?_

He didn’t sleep. After a few hours, when he judged his intoxication to have faded enough, he went to the shuttle bay without waking Archer or leaving a message. The human would figure out what had happened, and Shran didn’t owe him anything. It was better this way than having to look him in the eye when he woke up, anyway.

It did, however, leave him alone with his thoughts during the dull trip back to his own ship.

 _He'll tame you if he can_ , Shran thought as his shuttle moved through the darkness back toward his own ship. _You're better off staying away. Making sure he doesn't think of you as another creature he can name and call and keep._

Alone in the dark, he had the unnerving sense it was far, far too late for those kinds of scruples.


End file.
